page_title: Randalls and Wards Islands
section_title: Bridges
hierarchical_section_title: Randalls and Wards Islands / Infrastructure and facilities / Bridges
caption_attribution_description: en:Ward's Island Bridge spanning the Harlem River between Manhattan Island and Ward's Island, New York. Photo taken from a ramp on the Manhattan side looking east.
context_page_description: Randall's Island and Wards Island are conjoined islands, collectively called Randall's and Wards Islands, in New York City. separated from most of Manhattan by the Harlem River, from Queens by the East River and Hell Gate, and from the Bronx by the Bronx Kill. The two islands were formerly separated, with Randall's Island to the north of Wards Island. The channel between them, Little Hell Gate, was infilled by the early 1960s. A third, smaller island, Sunken Meadow Island, was located east of Randall's Island and was connected to it in 1955.
  The island had a population of 1,648 living on 2.09 square kilometers in 2010. Most of the island is parkland, spanning a total of 432.69 acres, and managed by Randall's Island Park Alliance. The park offers athletic fields, a driving range, greenways, playgrounds and picnic grounds. The island also has a history of being used for asylums, hospitals, and cemeteries, and is currently home to several public facilities, including two psychiatric hospitals, a state police station, a fire academy, a wastewater treatment plant, and several homeless shelters.
context_section_description: In 1917, the Hell Gate Bridge, a railroad bridge, was built across both islands, running from Queens to the Bronx. The bridge was first thought of in the early 1900s, as a plan to link New York and the Pennsylvania Railroad with New England and the New Haven Railroad. The bridge is considered to be extremely sturdy; it would be the last New York City bridge to collapse if humans disappeared, taking at least a millennium to do so, according to the February 2005 issue of Discover magazine, while most other bridges would fall in about 300 years.
  In 1936, the islands were connected to the rest of the city by the Triborough Bridge, the hub of which crossed the islands. The American Society of Civil Engineers designated the Triborough Bridge Project as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1986. On November 19, 2008, the Triborough Bridge was officially renamed after Robert F. Kennedy at the request of the Kennedy family. To manage the bridge (and eventually all tolled New York City water crossings), the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority erected an art deco head building, the former base of Robert Moses; the building still stands on the island.
  In 1937, the islands were connected by a bridge over Little Hell Gate, obviating the need for a ferry to Wards Island. There were two bridges that appear to have been known as Little Hell Gate Bridge – an early 20th-century rail bridge on the approach to Hell Gate Bridge, and a later, lower steel arch road bridge across Little Hell Gate. The northern approach viaduct to the Hell Gate Bridge included an inverted bowstring truss bridge, with four 300-foot (91 m) long spans, across Little Hell Gate. Although the majority of Little Hell Gate has been filled in, this bridge still exists. Some time after the rail bridge was built, a 1,000-foot (300 m) long, 3 span, steel arch road bridge, designed by George Washington Bridge-engineer Othmar Ammann, was also built across Little Hell Gate, just a short distance to the northwest of the rail bridge.
  The Little Hell Gate bridge was rendered obsolete when the Little Hell Gate was filled, and a service road was built alongside the deteriorating bridge. Efforts were made in the mid-1990s to preserve the bridge in the face of plans by the New York City Department of Transportation to demolish it. They were unsuccessful, and the bridge was replaced with a simple service road.
  In 1937, plans were developed by Robert Moses to construct a pedestrian bridge across the Harlem River from East Harlem, a bridge which would provide Manhattan residents with easy access to the new Wards Island's Park. However, actual construction of this Wards Island Bridge, also known as the 103rd Street Footbridge, did not begin until 1949. Designed by Othmar Hermann Ammann and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the footbridge was originally known as the Harlem River Pedestrian Bridge. This bridge opened to pedestrians on May 18, 1951 and was completed at a cost of $2.1 million. It gives access to Wards Island Park from East Harlem, which has few public green spaces.
  In November 2015, a ground-level footbridge over the Bronx Kill, called the Randall's Island Connector, opened, forming the second link from Randalls Island to the Bronx. Construction of this bridge was proposed in 2006, but did not begin until 2013.
caption: Wards Island Bridge central span in raised position, 2007.
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